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Friday, December 31, 2004

In Aceh, the activities of the military and rampant corruption have driven more than 40% of the population into extreme poverty.

Indonesia is among the most corrupt countries in the world according to Berlin-based Transparency International but the situation in Aceh is particularly bad.

During the year-long military operation begun in May 2003, the central government allocated $447.7 million – roughly three times larger than the provincial government’s budget – to military operations intended to crush the separatists. Of the total, $291 million was reported missing by a government-appointed auditor team

"Mysterious deaths in East Java. Have you seen the Jakarta Post stories about the murders of over a hundred people? Murders by black-clad figures dressed as Ninjas. Villagers have set up vigilante patrols to protect themselves."

"I remember reading about that. Someone was killing village witch doctors. It’s what happens when there’s political turbulence. You get this kind of paranoia. Some villager imagines seeing Ninjas. Vigilante patrols are set up and they end up killing innocent people."

"It isn’t just dukuns getting killed. It’s Moslem preachers and mentally backward youths. Mental patients have been dumped in villages. Along come the village vigilantes. They think the mentally backward youths are Ninjas. The youths get their heads chopped off. The heads are paraded on poles. It’s a psychological warfare operation."

"Run by Ninjas?"

"The Kopassus regiment, the army’s special forces, have used Ninjas in East Timor. They dress their people up in black costumes. They try to terrify people in order to control them. Some of the Ninjas are said to have arrived in villages in trucks. Bodies have been chopped up and bits of bodies have been chucked into mosques. Sounds like a black-op."

In Indonesia, in 1998, students who were opposed to the military were 'disappeared'.

According to journalist Allan Nairn, "General Prabowo's units that participated in the disappearances - particularly KOPASSUS Group 4, which U.S. officials singled out for blame in the Post - were, from the start of the abductions, in close and friendly liaison with U.S. intelligence. Reached at his Jakarta home the night after Prabowowas replaced, Colonel Chaiwaran, the Group 4 commander, confirmed to me that he deals with Col. Charles McFetridge, the DefenseIntelligence Agency (D.I.A.) attache at the U.S. Embassy, with whom, he said, he speaks in Indonesian... ABRI people say he has said that Group 4's men have been trained by U.S.intelligence, a claim that U.S. officials privately confirm."